It wasan't until I'd read this several times that I realized he said this:
When I got to Omaha it was around 12:30 am. The plane was late arriving and there were no employees visible. Although I was told later that it wouldn’t have mattered, I should have taken my hard case out of the padded protective exterior case to examine the guitar at the airport but I didn’t. The guitar case looked ok and we were tired, went to the hotel and then to sleep for our early morning pick-up by the tour managers the next day. When they picked us up in the early morning we would not be back in Omaha for seven days. It was later that day at sound check that I discovered that the base of my Taylor had been smashed.
He waited HOURS and until they were in a different city in another state to check the guitar for damage. This doesn't excuse airline employees playing pitch-n-toss with a valuable musical instrument (I've been playing guitar since the mid 1970s and respect quality instruments) but ...
United is no different to any other airline in my experience. Crummy customer service, crummy baggage handling, crummy ticketing and pricing policies, and cramped/dirty planes. At least he got his guitar at the other end, broken or not. If he'd flown on, say, British Airways then his guitar would possibly have disappeared altogether.
I am rather baffled why a musican on a tour would not have insurance for his gear. Then he could have just left it up to his insurance company to battle the airline. One reason why I never check anything valuable unless I know it's insured by me.
It is sad that what used to be one of the best US airlines has become one of the worst (but not THE worst... that honor IMO goes to American Airlines, a truly awful excuse for an airline)
Actually, the Director of the video is an excellent fine art photographer named Steve Richard. He's been shooting commercial photography for over 30 years, spending about 15 of those in the Carribean. A few years ago he got seriously into motion pictures, and has become one of the city's better DPs. Steve is also my studio partner, and the guy I've been learning from for the last couple years. That video was shot in our studio. =)
